Needs
This kind of mapping and in the context of accessing the resources
is often termed needs assessment.
Needs are a paramount term in social work and social policy, as well
as in general discourse. It not only lacks clarity but is also problematic
because of its normative nature. Based on the biological proposition of
homeostasis, it presupposes a lack, a deficit, which can easily be ascribed to
an individual person, group or community rather than to a situation, social
relationships or the system. In doing this, it is a devaluating mechanism and a
misleading tool of action. Besides, it is normative in sense of prescribing the
nature of what people need and the quantity of what they are entitled to. However,
they implicitly express rights for some kind of welfare provision. In fact, the
term of ‘needs’ mask the rights into a socio-biological given.
Illich (1992) historically deconstructs needs into desires or wishes
on one hand and the necessities on the other. Desires meaning what somebody
wants or wishes to do, to happen, while necessities are about social or
material contingencies of what ought to be done, to happen. Rather than using
concept of “needs” in order to integrate this dialectical double, “goals” can
be used as a such integrative term in alternation with desire; thus stressing
the volition and accumulation rather than predetermined state and the lack. The
“needs”, however, will remain in use, for time being, albeit just as a
technical term.
The goals and desires might be directly placed on the map or deduced
from its intricacies – contradictions, gradients etc. of the everyday life.
Once identified and articulated they will be transformed into claims (applications, requests), which
are to be placed in the system and eventually brought back to the claimer as
entitlements or eligibility. However, the claims have to be evaluated, assessed,
usually by experts and according to some rules. Once claim is granted, the
claimer transforms from a claimer to a beneficiary, a recipient. The resource
is to be integrated into his or her Life-World.
When this operation is about mobilisation of the (dormant) resources
in one’s own Life-World it may still be about putting claims on others that
share this Life-World, but it is also about participation, membership, and
person’s contribution to a group, network or community. It is also about
recovering the ground and instigating doing something in common good.
Claiming should not be seen as a selfish, egotistic action, just for one’s
personal benefit. When it is about claiming from the public resources it is an
act of “redistribution” and “re-appropriation” of a public goods into the
common good, based on rights rather than needs. When claim is placed on the
others in the community, it must be seen a creation of something that works for
a common good.
When the claim is approved, sometimes formally sometimes informally,
delivery is to be performed. In the case of simple matters, such as simple
financial benefit, the delivery is simple as well. In the case of complex
provision of services and benefits, the delivery entails besides the direct
provision, coordination, care for continuity and monitoring of the effects. When
it is about informal provision the attention must be given to the stability of
newly mobilised resources, e.g. by giving needed support to participants, also
coordination and common interest. Attention must be given also to the interface
of the Life-World with “other worlds” in a way that the latter do not overrun
the former, that the “colonialization” impact of the abstract scheme is reduced
to a minimum.
The best example of this basic operation is person centred care
(personal planning and coordinating care). It is based on the personal plan,
which presents and analyses person’s life situation, establishes personal goals
and operatively sets them in motion by listing the providers, the needed means
and resources, sets the deadlines and, in case of direct funding, calculates
the costs. It begins with an individual person, consults with other actors
involved and is usually approved on a team conference. After that, it is beginning
to be delivered with a support of the care coordinator. (Further reading: Brandon, 1994; Glasby, 2002; Rafaelič,
Nagode, Flaker, 2013).
References:
Brandon, D., Brandon, A. (1994), Yin
and Yang of Care Planning. Cambridge: Anglia University.
Glasby, J., Littlechild, R. (2002), Social Work and Direct Payments. Bristol: Policy Press.
Illich, I.
(1992), Needs. V: Sachs W., (ed.) The
Development Dictionary. London:
Zed Books: 88-101.
Rafaelič, A., Nagode, M. & Flaker, V. (2013) ‘Direct payments as
a means of long-term care provision and a vehicle of resettlement from total
institutions’, Dialogue in praxis, Volume
2 (15), Issue 1—2 (24—25), 2013, pp. 93—109. [Online] available at: http://dialogueinpraxis.fsd.uni-lj.si/index.php?id=5&a=article&aid=30
Ni komentarjev:
Objavite komentar